Brother Cadfael 09: Dead Man's Ransom

judgement as ever was made, and Maurice was in his cradle, and Gilbert's father, good God, was barely a man, but here the poor ancient has dredged it up as a mortal wrong. And it is but one among a dozen he keeps burnished in his memory, and wants blood for them all. Will you believe it, he has never set eyes on the sheriff? Can you hate a man you've never seen or spoken to, because his grandsire beat your father at a suit at law? Why should old age lose everything but the all, present evil?'
    A hard question. And yet sometimes it went the opposite way, kept the good, and let all the malice and spite be washed away. And why one old man should be visited by such grace, and another by so heavy a curse, Cadfael could not fathom. Surely a balance must be restored elsewhere.
    'Not everyone, I know,' said Cadfael ruefully, 'loves Gilbert Prestcote. Good men can make as devoted enemies as bad men. And his handling of law has not always been light or merciful, though it never was corrupt or cruel.'
    'There's one here has somewhat better cause than Maurice to bear him a grudge,' said Edmund. 'I am sure you know Anion's history as well as I do. He's on crutches, as you'll have seen before you left us on this journey, and getting on well, and we like him to go forth when there's no frost and the ground's firm and dry, but he's still bedded with us, within there. He says nothing, while Maurice says too much, but you're Welsh, and you know how a Welshman keeps his counsel. And one like Anion, half Welsh, half English, how do you read such a one?'
    'As best you can,' agreed Cadfael, 'bearing in mind both are humankind.'
    He knew the man Anion, though he had never been brought close to him, since Anion was a lay servant among the livestock, and had been brought into the infirmary in late autumn from one of the abbey granges, with a broken leg that was slow to knit. He was no novelty in the district about Shrewsbury, offspring of a brief union between a Welsh wool, trader and an English maid, servant. And like many another of his kind, he had kept touch with his kin across the border, where his father had a proper wife, and had given her a legitimate son no long time after Anion was conceived.
    'I do remember now,' said Cadfael, enlightened. 'There were two young fellows came to sell their fleeces that time, and drank too deep and got into a brawl, and one of the gate, keepers on the bridge was killed. Prestcote hanged them for it. I did hear tell at the time the one had a half brother this side the border.'
    Griffri ap Griffri, that was the young man's name. Anion had got to know him, the times he came into town, they were on good terms.
    'He was away among the sheep in the north when it happened or he might well have got his brother to bed without mischief. A good worker and honest, Anion, but a surly fellow and silent, and never forgets a benefit nor an injury.' Cadfael sighed, having seen in his time a long line of decent men wiped out in alternate savageries as the result of just such a death. The blood feud could be a sacred duty in Wales.
    'Ah, well, it's to be hoped the English half of him can temper his memories. That must be two years ago now. No man can bear a grudge for ever.'
    In the narrow, stone, cold chapel of the castle by the meagre light of the altar lamp, Elis waited in the gloom of the early evening, huddled into his cloak in the darkest corner, biting frost without and gnawing fire within. It was a safe place for two to meet who could otherwise never be alone together. The sheriff's chaplain was devout, but within limits, and preferred the warmth of the hall and the comforts of the table, once Vespers was disposed of, to this cold and draughty place.
    Melicent's step on the threshold was barely audible, but Elis caught it, and turned eagerly to draw her in by both hands, and swing the heavy door closed to shut out the rest of the world.
    'You've heard?' she said, hasty and low. 'They've found him, they're bringing him back. Owain Gwynedd has promised it...'
    'I know!' said Elis, and drew her close, folding the cloak about them both, as much to assert their unity as to shield her from the chill and the trespassing wind. For all that, he felt her slipping away like a wraith of mist out of his hold. 'I'm glad you'll have your father back safely.' But he could not sound glad, no matter how manfully he lied. 'We knew it must be so if he lived...' His voice baulked there, trying not to sound as if he wished her